title: Getting the desired candidate: an exploration of the covert strategies.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Many people across the world believe that employment decisions are based on merit, on factors related to job knowledge, skills or abilities. People believe that decisions are biased or discriminatory if based on demographic criteria such as gender, race, caste, community, creed etc… unrelated to the job.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study is to explore the covert motives that might exist amongst senior managers when recruiting their desired candidates.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixty senior managers belonging to two international corporations based in western India participated.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using the Theory of Planned Behavior as the theoretical foundation qualitative data was obtained through in-depth interviews with the sixty participants and analyzed using content analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Content analysis based on the Theory of Planned Behavior revealed five main strategies of covert recruitment practices: fulfilling vested interests, obligation creation, cultural bias, mirror reflection and status enhancement. The research findings indicate that 25% of those interviewed used premeditated strategies when recruiting their desired candidates which they concealed from coworkers. However in order to generalize the findings of the present study, a study with a larger sample size across different industries need to be done.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Covert actions were central to employee recruitment in these settings and are likely fundamental to a more complete understanding of managers' recruitment behaviors beyond the context of this study.
authors.affiliation: Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand 247667, India. Tel.: +91 1332 284760; E-mail: rajiblochandhar2000@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Rajib Lochan
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Dhar
mesh_terms: D000288:Administrative Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D010560:Personnel Selection / Q000379:methods*; D011287:Prejudice; D036301:Qualitative Research
keywords: India; Recruitment; interview; qualitative analysis